By Mark Keane

Conor McGregor, the kingpin of the UFC’s 145lb division, was set to make history on March 5th as he prepared to fight the 155lb Lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos in an attempt to become the first dual-weight UFC champion. A recurring theme for The Notorious is the fact that his opponents have had to pull out of their scheduled fight, forcing him to prepare for a whole new type of opponent. Luckily Conor lives by the motto “Stay ready so I don’t have to get ready”, so when Dos Anjos had to pull out of the fight with a broken foot 2 weeks before UFC 196, he stayed ready, keeping his weight on point, waiting to see who would step up. One of Stockton’s most famous sons, Nate Diaz, stepped up, saving UFC 196, and setting in motion what is likely to be the most epic fight in UFC history and of Conor McGregor’s career.

The Notorious has competed at 145lb for most of his career, but has long been known as one of the biggest featherweights and for cutting down from as high as 175lbs. All you have to do is look at some of his weigh in pictures to see what he goes through to compete at featherweight, the devastating effect written on his gaunt face. Conor’s coach, John Kavanagh of SBG Ireland, has said we’ve seen Conor on salads knocking out people, now watch what he can do on steaks. The idea being that by not having to lose as much weight for this fight and not having to follow a strict diet, that we will see a whole new deadlier version of The Notorious. With a KO/TKO rate of 89% in his career, by moving up a weight class Conor is likely to turn from kingpin to tyrant, unleashing an unholy reign of terror over the entire 155lb division.

All rights reserved

With weight being such an important issue in Conor’s career, his diet needs to be carefully planned to ensure he meets the weigh in requirements while having enough energy the following day to compete. He’s been a big fan of the Paleo diet which had him eating salmon, chicken, steak, fruit and plenty of vegetables. Lately, he seems to be following The Sirtfood Diet by Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten. If you were just beginning to understand the Paleo, Dukan and 5:2 diets, well the Sirt diet is likely to leave you a bit confused. However, one of the reasons why this diet will be the next big thing in 2016 is due to the fact that it encourages devotees to drink red wine and coffee, while also eating 85% cocoa dark chocolate. Sounds like a nice diet right!

The concept behind the diet is to eat foods that are high in sirtuin activators. Sirtuins are proteins that protect the body from becoming susceptible to disease and inflamed while also regulating your metabolism, increasing muscle mass and also burning fat. Sirtfoods basically imitate the effect of exercise and fasting, with some people labelling the effect as “activating your skinny gene”. You can imagine why an athlete such as Conor McGregor would be interested in following such a diet.

All rights reserved

You’re no doubt wondering which foods are high in sirtuin activators. The diet recommends eating things like apples, citrus fruits, blueberries, green tea, walnuts and kale, nothing too strange there. However, it also says to eat parsley, capers, soy, turmeric, red onions, lovage, dates, chicory and buckwheat and tofu, which you probably weren’t expecting. There’s practically no mention of meat or fish items with the exception of prawns and salmon.

If you fancy on giving the diet a shot, for the first 3 days you are restricted to eating 1000 calories, which is around half the recommended daily allowance, then you eat 1500 calories for the next 4 days. Once you get over that hump, the Sirtfood Diet’s long term plan is to have its followers eat 3 Sirt rich meals a day, followed with one Sirt green juice. You probably thought it was going to be all fun and games drinking wine and eating chocolate, but that’s not the case!

If these sirtfoods help improve the power in Conor’s left hook, there will be no division safe from him!